Born in 1907, Casper Reardon was a prodigy, a prize student of the great harpist Carlos Salzedo. As a teenager he won a scholarship to Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, and by his twentieth birthday he had played with the Cincinnati Symphony and New York Philharmonic.
Even in these years, Reardon displayed great interest in, and skill at, applying the accents and vitality of jazz to his instrument. By the mid-’30s he was much in demand in New York radio and recording studios as a freelancer. His solo work on Jack Teagarden’s 1934 recording of “Junk Man” is notable for the ease with which he borrows from the concepts of both piano and guitar in adapting the harp to the rhythmic needs of hot music.
“His big ambition,” said a 1937 Metronome article, “is to do in a performing way what Gershwin did in a composing way—i.e. to educate the general long-haired public on the finer points of shorter-haired jazz and actually elucidate via concerts at Carnegie Hall.”
In addition to his efforts for others, Reardon recorded fourteen titles under his own name between 1936 and 1940; they are notable both for the beauty of his work and the consistent inventiveness of their arrangements. A 1936 “Summertime” rests on an unusual and haunting ostinato figure; and “They Didn’t Believe Me,” done in 1940, makes poignant use of the high, pure voice of Loulie Jean Norman.
Singer-songwriter Bonnie Lake, a close friend, called him “a consummate musician,” and most colleagues agreed. Reardon died suddenly in 1941, age thirty-four, of the effects of a liver ailment.